Comprehending the property of form, not taking a stance in the formless, those released in cessation are people who've left death behind.

Having touched with his body the deathless property free from acquisitions, having realized the relinquishing of acquisitions, fermentation-free, the Rightly Self-awakened One teaches the state with no sorrow, no dust.

This is Theravada forum, and if you want to understand the teaching in nibbana sutta with discussion, I can say, you can only dream about it.

What is stated in Nibbana sutta, like below, is very rare.

Quote

There is that dimension, monks, where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon......

This is the sutta that touch the absolute truth. And this kind of sutta is very rare in Pali Canon.

However, when you compare this type of sutta within Mahayana or Vajrayana, this kind of sutta is plenty. Indeed, this type of sutta is the backbone.

So, the discussion is very very extensive in Mahayana, not to mention Vajrayana.

With this limited passage in Pali Canon, you won't be able to fathom the meaning.

The only way in Theravada is by doing a meditation. And you must reach the state of Jhana 4: Neither perception nor non-perception.

This state itself is already a mystery for normal ordinary people to understand.

Because as long as you are still alive, how can you be free from perception or do not have perception?

And to fathom the meaning of the no birth, no death, this will be far more difficult, if we can't even understand neither perception nor non-perception.

We jump the step too far.

As long as you do not have the meditation experience of neither perception nor non-perception, any statement coming purely from your intellectual thinking is very dangerous.

Because you think about what you never experience. How can it be correct?

You then need to study extensively from other buddhist master that ever experience that state, like Nagarjuna, Asanga, Padmashambava, and so on.

From their extensive explanation, then you can have some glimpse about that Nibbana sutta, where the content in very rare in Pali Canon.

so that content is very rare and hardly can be found in the around 30,000 page pali canon?

Tell me sir have you read the ENTIRE Pali Canon?

If you have not then how would you know it cannot be found and is rare in the Pali canon.

(I have only read the MN,SN,DN and parts of the KN......I have never even touched or graced my eyes upon an AN..........)

Ven. Nyanananda's words remind me of one of the deliverances, animitta-vimokkha, - deliverance through absence of representations.I would interpret his freedom from concepts, in Buddha's terms, as "animitta cetosamadhi".

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Ven. Nyanananda's words remind me of one of the deliverances, animitta-vimokkha, - deliverance through absence of representations.I would interpret his freedom from concepts, in Buddha's terms, as "animitta cetosamadhi".

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

"Sphere", - Äyatana.It's just that this sphere does not partake of anything physical.One 'touches' it.This sphere is beyond arupa jhanas. One may 'touch' it, even without the mastery of arupa attainments.